Let us apply this then to a desire that we have that others around us would behave better: that this desire would be peaceful and without distress. Let us know how to remain calm even when others around us act in a manner that seems to us erroneous and unjust.

We should clearly do what depends on us to help them, even to see that they are reproved and corrected, in line with the potential responsibilities that we have to assume with regard to them, but everything should be done in gentleness and peace. When we are powerless, let us be quiet and let God act.

How many people lose their peace because they want, at any price, to change those around him! How many married people become agitated and irritated because they would like their spouses not to have this or that fault!

The Lord asks us, on the contrary, to bear with patience the faults of others. You must reason as follows: if the Lord has still not transformed this person, has not relieved him of such and such an imperfection, it is because He puts up with him as he is! He waits, with patience, the opportune moment.

Then I must do likewise. I must pray and be patient. Why be more demanding and impatient than God?

I think sometimes that my haste is motivated by love. But, God loves infinitely more than I do; however He is less hurried!

Therefore be patient, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Think of the farmer: how he waits for the precious yield of the earth, patiently waiting until it receives the early and late rains! (James 5:7).

This patience is all the more important in that it brings about in us a purification that is absolutely indispensable.

We believe that we wish the good of others, or our own good, but this wish is frequently mixed with a great deal of hidden search for oneself, our own will, our attachment to personal beliefs, narrow and limited, to which we cling so much and that we wish to impose on others and sometimes even on God.

We must at all costs be free of this narrowness of heart and judgment, in order that it is the good, not such as we imagine it or conceive it, that is realized, but that which corresponds to the designs of God, so much more vast and appealing.

When children are taught that their chores can be prayer….that the drudgery can be applied to the sufferings of some other child somewhere, who has no bed to make, who must spend his nights curled up in a hole, shivering, starved, unhappy, and with no one to care for him…those same chores can be changed into great spiritual joy! -Mary Reed Newland, How to Raise Good Catholic Children http://amzn.to/2op5ZSs (afflink)

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BOOK REVIEW!

This book, Divine Intimacy, has been an invaluable meditation book for me and for my family!

This Book of Meditations is a classic and is seeped in Carmelite spirituality. For every day it offers two meditations, in liturgical arrangement, that enable the soul to enter the conscious presence of God and to reflect on the theme of the day. These are followed by a ‘Colloquy’ that helps the person at prayer to start a friendly conversation with God where acts of praise and love, petition and thanksgiving are made, together with good resolutions for the future. Here we are at the very heart of prayer, which is a heart-to-heart encounter in faith with the living God.

Divine Intimacy is the highest state attainable on earth. In this union of love, the soul produces acts of love which have an immense apostolic influence on a multitude of souls. This knowledge of the ways that lead to God, according to the teaching of the renowned Spanish mystics, is distilled into the pages of this book.

About the Author:
Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., was a Discalced Carmelite priest who became one of the most revered masters of the spiritual life. He acquired a vast knowledge of the ways that lead to holiness and to union with God. His experience with souls, whom he guided to the heights of perfection, was outstanding. He was an expert in the spiritual and mystical doctrine of St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila) and of St. John of the Cross. The Discalced Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of St. Joseph in Rome were the heirs of the Father Gabriel’s vast output of published works and private manuscripts. For ten years, he guided these nuns as their confessor and spiritual director, and it was they who helped him to arrange his material in line with the course of the liturgical year, while following the ascent of the soul to transforming union with God, or to ‘Divine Intimacy.’

This book is a remarkable tool of apologetics and devotion, intellectual understanding and spiritual fervor, for here is the result of a combination of the strength of the Dominicans, who are noted for their exemplary preaching, eloquence and philosophy and the strength of the Carmelites, noted prayer warriors, marked by their sanctity, fervor and total devotion to God.

Each entry begins with a brief ejaculatory prayer meant to place one in a deeper awareness of the presence of God. This is followed by 2 meditations on the given subject, which is loosely related to the older (pre-Vatican II) Catholic calendar of daily Scriptural readings. The meditations are concluded with an inspired prayer, frequently one penned by a Carmelite Saint, such as Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity or Saint Therese or a Dominican such as Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Dominic or Saint Thomas Aquinas.